Facebook redesign

The long, painful and drawn-out death of skeuomorphic design lurched forward another step this week with a redesign by the world’s biggest social media site, Facebook.

The new look is spearheaded by a logomark that is a simplified version of the pre-existing one. Although the full Facebook logo will remain unchanged, the round-cornered square with the solitary ‘f’ has been carefully refined.

The blue strip, previously positioned at the bottom of the graphic as a nod towards a light reflection has been dropped. The letter ‘f’ has been enlarged, and the stem now connects with the outer edge of the square, creating the sense that the shape is a window through to something, rather than a box containing it. Conceptually, this tiny change makes a huge difference. The arms of the glyph have also been tweaked, with a longer protrusion on the left and a more acute angle on the right.

Along with the ‘f’ logo mark, other official pages have new icons. Facebook’s icons have always looked like something from a clipart CD circa 1998, so the new designs are a very welcome — and long overdue — update.

Viewed as a group they’re a little imbalanced with, for example, far less detail on the developers’ icon than the non-profits’. The only real complaint being that the similarity between security and privacy icons is pronounced.

It’s hard to see the redesign as anything but a positive move for the site.

What do you think of the new Facebook icons? Could you identify the icons without the accompanying text? Let us know in the comments.